China to Crackdown on Inferior Gas Cylinders

China will to crack down on the production and selling of poor-quality steel cylinders containing liquefied petroleum gas used for household gas stoves.

Factories producing inferior gas cylinders that endanger people 's lives and property will be forced to shut down, said an official with the State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision today.

A recent random examination conducted by the bureau among 66 gas cylinder producers across China found that only 72.7 percent of their products were up to national standards.

The spot check showed that 18 kinds of gas cylinders have quality problems in their materials and volume and pressure, three key factors that can cause explosions.

With the wide use of gas stoves in many regions of China, the output of gas cylinders continues to increase, hitting 34 million last year, with an annual value of 2.72 billion yuan (about 328 million U.S. dollars).

However, many factories produce poor-quality cylinders in order to cut costs. In May last year, two people were seriously injured in a gas cylinder explosion in Jinghai County of Tianjin, a port city some 150 km from Beijing.

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